Upon reflection, this notion of capitalism, that somehowthe greed and materialism of capitalism brings about the betterment of society, is nothing more then a metaphysical account of the "hand of god" as an justificationfor the lower instincts of greed, lust, envy, hate and anger, among other lower instincts that are driven by capitalism...….

Some humans that are not self-determined, believe they need some justification for their greed and lust and they findthis justification in a metaphysical concept that is the "invisible hand of god" that drives our materialistic age of capitalism...….

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I have been thinking about this for some time, well since yesterday anyway......

I have already presented the concept of the "common good" which was presented originally by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle......but one has to understand the basic premiseof their argument...….

To the Greeks, it was only in the Polis, the city, that man could findhis Arete, his excellence and the only place where a man could becomea human being, not a barbarian. They accept and understood that was ina civil society which they equated with the state, that someone could become who they are. The emphasis that Plato place on the state wasn't justtheoretical jibber jabber, it was the emphasis that the Greeks placed onthe State. To engage with the "common good" meant you were improving the most valuable tool a Greek had, the polis, the city.

To engage with the Polis, that there was no higher goal of the citizen,wasn't contested by any Greek.....The Greeks engage with and understoodthat they were social creatures who needed the state to find their better natures.

the idea of modern rugged individualism or Ayn Rand nonsense wouldn't have made any sense to them.. the individual cannot survive on their own, we needthe Polis to survive and become even better, find our Arete.

This is a truth that we have lost and if we are to survive, we must recover that long lost truth... that alone, we cannot survive and we cannot make the best of who we are...it is only in our engagement with others, in a civil society/statethat we can we make it.

The idea of the "common good" was continued by virtually every single philosophersince Aristotle...…until we reach America in the 1900, where the idea changednames and became the "public good" but the same theory. It has many differentdefinitions which is part of the problem with the notion of the "public good". You can almost state the "public good" as almost anything and many dangerousideas and policies have been done in the name of the "public good" including the Holocaust and the atomic bomb and IQ45 tax cuts...…so one has to be aware of what theproponent of the "public good" is actually advocating, but the essential nature of the "public good" must have actions that actually benefit the "public". As the sign on America's wall says, democracy, then we must conduct actions and policies that benefit its democracy...… not any particular small group likepeople who donated to your campaign, or as we call them in my house, bribes....the "public good" must actually engage and benefit the public, so we include education and healthcare and social security and Medicare... in other words,things that are socialistic, as the Greeks knew to be true, we must discoverto be true that the only path to success we can know individually or collectivelymust be together, capitalism is not a sustainable ideology and the only path leftis working together and combining our assets and then collectively disposing of them to benefit the "public good"...…….socialism accepts the proposition thatmany hands make light work... if we work together and with purpose, wecan solve many, many of the issues that plague us today...….

which leads me to my last point, vision.... who among our leadershave a vision that leads us to some goal or destination? we see the youngerleaders like Kamala Harris trying to create ad hoc decisions, but theyaren't leading to some overall, comprehensive goal or vision of where wewant to be and where we need to be.....It is not enough to fight against global warming, you must endeavor to fight global warming within some vision ofwhere we want to be in the future...…. the solutions we seek must existwithin some overall plan or destination we want to reach......it is not enough to create solutions to immigration if we don't understand immigrationin the context of past, present and future and of where we want to be in the future.

some goal is needed to create some understanding of what steps wemust take to reach that goal...… even if and especially if the goal is far into the future...… we must begin to plan not just the next quarter or to the next election, we must plan 5 or 10 or 20 or a 100 years into the future. We must engage in the long game of the human race.....

for the "public good" demands that we not only focus on the pastand present but on the future and a future where we will not exist....

I am transitory, temporary and you are transitory, temporary... the polis, society the state will all go on after we die... the society, the statedoesn't need any one individual, but the individual needs society, the state.....in order to exist, to survive... this is an essential fact of life and we must think of our goal, our destination in light of the fact that when we die,we will leave our children and their children, a better life... and that takesplanning, long term planning and thus we need to have a vision, a goal,a destination for us to reach for and that goal will decide, determine whatsteps we must take to reach that goal...…...who among our leaders havea long term plan, a vision of what tomorrow will look like? None right now..and thus, I haven't found what I am looking for, apologies to U2...….in our current crop of people seeking to become president...…

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

let us take as our guiding principles, certain ideas that can act as guides into our vision of the future...…

All human beings are created equal...….

that human beings are transitory, temporary.....

that the search for truth begins with doubt, not wonder.....

that the pursuit of "life, liberty" is fundamental but not the pursuit of "happiness". No, a thousand times no. This error haslead humans far astray from what should be their journey...…what should be in its place? the third phrase should read as this, the pursuit of "life, liberty and the journey itself".....

for all of human existence is a journey from birth to death....what is the point or purpose of life..... to die...…that is the final end game of life,

to die: to sleep, No more: and by sleep to we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep: sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there the rub;for in that sleep of death what dreams may come,when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause:

Indeed, in this passage of the bard, we see another principle, we discoverthe function of ART as it gives us pause, to see another possibility that exist for us, that in death, we might dream but what dreams must,give us pause...we imagine our possibilities as human's and we call that ART.

so the next example of guiding principles is simple, we must dream and we call those dreams ART. ART is simply dreams taking form.....and we must express those dreams in some fashion and we have ART.

Another guiding principle is, we must have a vision, a goal, a destination of where are going, both individually and collectively.....Martin Luther King said, " I have a dream" and that dream is a vision, a goal....and when the founding fathers said, "all men are created equal" that is another vision, another goal.

I too have a dream, Kropotkin's dream is that all human beings have as their guiding principle, the dream of justice.... where all existin a state of justice, both individually and collectively...…and what is justice, Justice is just a term for equality.....

and the cynics and parties without values or hope, shout, "Utopia, you speak of Utopia.... "man will never reach a stateof justice because we are built too differently. I am different thenmy fellow man. My state of justice means I must be treated differently".

and to all who declare themselves above equality, I say unto you. If wanting justice for all, as a goal for all, makes that vision a Utopian dream, then let us dream for Utopia. Let our vision of another day, be a vision of what we call Utopian. Why must we force ourselvesto dream small, why must our vision of tomorrow be so shallow and narrow. Why not dream big, why not have a vision of tomorrow where thereis justice for all. It is a goal, a vison worthy of being pursued, not this puny vision/goal of our pursuit of our materialistic theology, where moneyis god. NO, let us dream big where we pursue our dreams of where justice and not security rules the day. and if it be called Utopian, so be it...I am not afraid of dreams that benefit the entire world.....

and the party of no, shouts, "Naïve" "Innocent" "Dewey-eye liberal"

and I ask, why, why am I "naïve" and they shout back, you can't dream big...

"Why, I ask"

and finally they reveal the truth about themselves, these naysayers and "realist"....

"We cannot dream big. We are not capable of having large visions. And because of that, we must deny any who dream big, who have a vision that answers for all of us. To dream big, to imagine utopia is antithetical to usbecause we are incapable of such grand visions, of such power of imagination.We abhor those who can dream big, of those with visions of utopia because we are unable to dream of such sweeping grand visions...… we have limited, narrowdreams and visions.....and that makes us suspicious of any who can dream larger then we can... and that is why we call liberals names..... we have small andinsignificant dreams and goals and visions..... so we must belittle those who can dream big"

and the truth wills out, for it is jealousy that drives those who deny the dreamers of large visions...……

I want a world where the values are values of love, peace, hope, charity, justice and honesty...…. I want a world where we wake upevery day with hope in our hearts. If that be called a utopia, then so be it......I dream of a utopia where everyone can become who they areand I dream of a reality where dreams really do come true.....

I dream of a world of hope and justice and love.... I see a vision of humanity where we live in peace and happiness.... and if that is calleda utopia, then so be it.... I dream of utopia.... and you should to....for that is the only way we can make utopia real, possible..... it is by our dreams and our actions that will make utopia real and possible....

so call me such names as you see fit... for I shall be dreaming of a futurewhere we wouldn't even dream of calling someone names...….

I have a vision......and if is utopia, I plea guilty for I desire to livein a world where we have peace and justice and love... why dreamof anything less?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

a question that has faced "Modern" thinkers is this question of self-reflection....... In other words, we see the universe, reality,through the lens of "what does it mean to me". Self -reflection is about seeing reality, the universe through the lens of our "soul"...but what if, what if we need to see the universe, reality, not by self-reflection,but by our relationships to other things in the universe. that is to say, I understand who I am by my relationship to the civil society,by my relationship to god, by my relationship to other people...….not by self-reflection. Seeing who we are by our actions and interactions with others, individually and/or collectively.... not by any self-reflection that says, I am Kropotkin,and I understand reality, the universe through my understanding of who I am and what is possible for me.......my value that I understand life is justice, isthat just or not, that is the lens through which I see the universe.....that is just one way to discover or see reality, the universe..... the way of relationshipssays, that I discover who I am, is by my relationships with others, with the state,with god.... So I learn who I am by my understanding of my actions and interactions with others/the state/civil society instead of discovering my relationships throughsome understanding of what it means to be Kropotkin.......I Kropotkin, I am a liberal,so I see the world/reality through the lens of my being liberal which I gained throughself-reflection.... no, I understand I am liberal by my actions and interactions and relationships in the world and that tells me I am a liberal......This question of throughwhich lens we see the world is one of the basic questions of modernity...….

Do I see the world through subjectivity or do I see the world through the actions and interactions and relationship within the world and I take that knowledge backto my subjective self and thus learning the "truth" about the world?

we must at least visit the possibility that we see ourselves and learn about ourselves,about who we are, by our experiences and interactions with the world instead of having self-reflections and then seeing the world through those self-reflections.....

How do we see the world/reality?

by what method?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

these modern leaders who want to be king, they proclaim their solutions to the problems of the world, my solution to immigration is not a wall, butcomprehensive immigration reform or the solution to poverty is...…..

and they see the ying of the world, the troubles of the world and the gigantic issues that seem to have infected the world.....but these leaders lack the vision or the sight to see the yangof the world which is the beauty of the world, the vision to see a world of hope and kindness and justice that does exists in the world.....they see the problems but not the hopeful and positive things in the world....for that too requires a vision, a insight into what is and what is not.....

we see the problems but not hopeful nature of what it means to be human....

we humans, we need, desire, demand hope and what hope demands, requires and needs is a vision of tomorrow and what is possible tomorrow.....

for our tomorrow can be a place where justice and love and peace does exists, not only for us, but for all of us......

Our leaders see the issues, but not the vision or the dream of a better placethat can be found if we just dream and then act upon our dreams.....

I see a tomorrow where there is justice and love and peace...but our leaders can only see the problems created by man,but what of the vision to make all our tomorrows possible?

that is lacking...…

it is not enough to say, I see injustice and hatred and anger and greed, we must do more and dream more and act upon those dreams/visions.

Dream of a utopia where we have justice and hope and dreams and love and peace..... dare to imagine that possibility... that is what ARTdoes. it dares to dream and imagine those possibilities.

but the naysayers and "realist" might say,

"but utopia has its failings and it is possible that utopia might be a nightmare....

yes, that is true, but until we dream and act upon our visions, we can neverfind out.... and I would rather find out then just deny its possibilities because thosepossibilities might, might not work out...…….

working for an impossible future is preferable to just existing in a world lacking in hope and justice and peace...….

Someone once said, "workers of the world, unite! you have nothing to lose but your chains"

people of the world, unite! you have nothing to lose but your injustice, your despair,your misery..... Unite and become who you dream of, unite and discover your possibilities.... what do you have to lose but your anger and your hate andyour bigotry, your intolerance and the hopelessness that exists in our world today...…

it is not about the struggle of the classes against each other, but about the possibility to achieve something beyond just class consciousness.... to achieve the possibilityof becoming human, fully human.... rising above or overcoming those lowerinstincts that hold us back from becoming human... the fear and anger and hatred that is the lower instincts.... rise above those lower instincts, those lower valuesand dream of world that has justice and hope and charity and peace...…

dream big or go home...…

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

Heidegger spends a great deal of time dealing with concealedand unconcealed.....things are concealed and then unconcealed....this uncovering happens as a historical event, but let us take a closer look at what it means to travel from concealed to unconcealed.....

Christians believe in god and jesus and heaven and hell, infact they take all the ideology that goes along with believe in god.....

we know that belief in god was very strong and is strong today....but let us take Nietzsche's word when he said, "god is dead and we have killed him"...…..this type of concealment where god had died butwe didn't know it, we didn't even know we killed him..... then Nietzsche unconcealed it, revealed the "truth" that god was died...…

Now think of the 19th century, from the Napoleonic wars to the death of Nietzsche,in 1900...….. how could Nietzsche discover that "god was dead" if it was concealed, how did he uncover it? what was his evidence for the statement that "god was dead and we had killed him"?

I received some truths that had been concealed from me and nowthey are unconcealed, uncovered.....

I don't hide the fact I hate my job and the corporation I work for andafter transferring me to a store much further away, that was the last straw,I sent out resumes and contacted people...….and one honest person,spoke truths to me and uncovered my reality...…. I am too old and have worked too long at my company for anyone to hire me....I am unhirable… pure and simple.... this truth has brought some uncomfortable truths to the table for me...…..

when we are young, we have possibilities, choices, options, door open when we are young...… as we grow older, our choices,our possibilities, our options grow ever smaller.... doors once opened,no longer open..... I no longer have choices, options, possibilities to find another job..... I am too old..... and the truth announced itself to me.....I have been reduced to only two working choices and that is the outcome of being old..... I work at my present job in my present company and be unhappyand miserable or I retire and I can't afford that.... so as we grow old the fact of life is we have our choices and possibilities ever reduced, growsmaller...…..but given this unconcealment of my ever reducing possibilitiesand choices, I must find out what possibilities and choices, I do have?

and after a rather bitter day mulling over my reduced choices and possibilities,I've come to realize that I can still exercise my possibilities and choices, hereas I write and read and think...….I can still find my possibilities within the words and art I create here at ILP...…. as one door in my life closes, I can find other possibilities and choices in my writings...…...in my working life, I must work until I can retire or I die.... that is my only two choices butin my art, and I call my postings here, ART..... for it is the act of creation that I engage with here and, and it reveals to me, my still existing possibilitiesand choices...…..

yesterday was a day of uncomfortable truths, but my reality isn't solely basedon my working status.... I must find my truths elsewhere and that will be in my studies...…

one door closes and another opens...…

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I just had a thought, so think of this as an thought experimentmore then my usual ramblings.....

modernity....and what separates modernity from what came before....

think of how things were done before technology and science....

most of the world for most of humanity's history has grown their own food and/or hunted and/or fished... if you wanted to eat, for most of historyyou either grew it or you hunted it..... that has been the human way for since the creation of humans and in fact, that is the way it is for animals....to eat, you found your food, you killed it, then you ate it......that has been the way of animals for over a billion years here on planetearth.......

now at time the technology grew from spears to bow and arrows to guns, but the idea was still the same, the tools used changed......

for American frontier families, they grew their food and then went into town and traded that food for other goods they needed.. but the meat/fish was found, killed and eaten....... you had an immediate direct relationship with the processes that allowed you to exists.....

to grow the food, you needed plows and other tools that farmersneeded to grow their food...…..

there was no separation between the actions of the human beingand how they lived... if you wanted to eat, you had to find and kill the foodand if you wanted to grow stuff, you had to grow the stuff...… there was nomediation between human's actions and how they lived......in other words,you had direct control over your food and how you got them.....

think of the modern world..... If I want to eat, I go to the store, I buythe food and we use appliances to cook the food..... compare that to the way of life for a million years....If I was hungry, I had to go find the food, kill the food and prepare the foodmyself or get a family member to do so.....

we were in direct contact with the way we lived, the tools we used werelimited in how they were used....the modern person who is squeamish aboutblood or killing animals would have died before 1800 because they had to kill and prepare food to survive..... of course this was before modernity.....

now as I said, we go to the store, buy the food and pay money for it....so clean and neat and without any idea of how that food was prepared.....we simply take it for granted...…

or to say this another way, between us and the basics of life, existsour tools, technology, machines... our means of how we surviveis separate and apart from us by technology and machines.....

we exists and someone else who we don't know and have nevermeet, has already taken care of the "modern" needs of survival....

we exists and the basics of life is separate and apart from us...…

we have no contact with or are completely separated from a millionsyears of existence...out tools and technology and machines have isolated us from what human life was like for a million years...…

we exists and between us and the basics of life exists some sort of mediation, tools, machines and technology and even money.....

of course we feel alienated, remote, an estrangement from our existence because we are living our lives vastly differentthen all life previously, human and animal...….

we humans have had over 15,000 generations of human existencesince the beginning of modern humans, since the beginning of "modern" times, say the French revolution, we have had 9 generations.....(at roughly 25 years per generation)

9 generations isn't enough time to adapt or learn to cope with the radical changes that has happened since the French Revolution.....my great grandmotherwas born in 1849, thus I am 4 generations away from 1849...… so personally, I am roughly 6 generations from the French Revolution....not much time...……

so how do generations adapt so quickly over so short of a time to go from living a life that in 1789 would have been familiar to Julius Caesar, some 2000 years ago, to living a life that would have been completely unfamiliar to someone like Napoleon in the short span of the 230 yearssince the French Revolution...……

we have become separated, apart, alienated from the human existence thathad lasted for over 300,000 since the rise of modern humans...…..

so let us think about history for a moment.....

the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans were part of the cycle of human existence that went from the rise of the city to the Medieval times.... The Greeks for example, felt they were part of a long past that went back into the unknow past...they felt at home with the long standing tradition that the were part of and hadlasted for a couple of thousand years......that collapse and the new age began.....but this new age had much of the same process that had lasted for a million years..Human beings lived off the land.... thus the political and economic and social order may have changed, but it didn't change the fact that human beings still existed by living off the land... that didn't change until the start of the industrial revolution or roughly 1789...…….and within a hundred years, the modern world wasnot only born but brought into fruition.... we can easily see the modern world by 1900... phones, cars, airplanes came a few years later, but at the French Revolution,you cannot see the modern world, not yet....the machines and science and technology wasn't there yet......the science and machines and technology which has divided usfrom the previous 15,000 generations of human beings.....

and now the 64,000 dollar question? is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

when thinking about it, metaphysics makes sense when one is in immediate contact with living off the land...you hunt, you fish, you grow stuff on land... that is immediate, directcontact with how human beings have lived for 15,000 generations....you are in touch with all those ancestors who lived before you becauseyou are living your life in the exact same way they did..... tradition is strong because tradition is a way of life....

we moderns have no contact with our traditions, because wedon't live our life as the prior generations did.... we have becomeapart, separate, alienated from that way of life that existed for a million yearsand a billion years before that......

and having a god or a religion makes sense in the midst of a history thathas existed for several hundred of thousands of years...….. but as we don't have immediate contact with or better said, we have layersof science and machines and technology between us and the basics of life,we don't have the same connection to the past that had existed for15,000 generations of human existence......

even in the urban environment of existence, it really didn't change muchfrom Egypt to Greece to Rome through the Middle ages through the rise ofthe modern city, Paris, Rome, London... .. until the French Revolution, living in the city was pretty much the same everywhere because the citylife itself didn't really change from Greece to 1789.... the rise of scienceand machines and technology, that changed city life to what the moderncity is today.....the connection that existed in the city that was theresince the ancient times, change because of the rise of science, technologyand machines...…..the very act of living is different today because of the science and technology and machines that exists and we haven't come togrips with what that means yet...…..before the French revolution, life in the city was pretty much the same outside of local differences,but now life has changed and, and this is the confusing part, travel from one city to the next, and there is a certain sameness,a certain local feel, but each city is tied and connected to each otherby science and technology and machines that makes every city seem to be no different, again outside of local differences...… so, San Francisco is different then Chicago, having lived in both, but they are connectedby the science, technology and machines that exists within both and tie bothtogether...….if someone dropped you off in an American city and didn't tell you what city, without asking someone, how long would it take for you to knowwhat city you were in? As every city has cars and public transportation and streets and tall buildings and everywhere exists the same stores,7/11 and Walgreens and rite-aid and Burger King and MacDonald's and Wendyand Macy and Sears (before they fell) the Gap and Nordstrom's......

the sameness of our American cities is scary..... and something of a connectionthat human beings need......

this sameness that is American cities also existed in various cities in Europenot because of the fact that cities didn't really change for the average person.....Paris of 1500 and Paris of 1600 and Paris of 1700 was remarkable the same city...…And London didn't change that much over the 300 years and during the Middle ages,the cities didn't change that much, from 600 AD to 1500 AD, Paris wasn't that different.

a citizen of 800 Paris could have easily gotten around during the 1500's, the only differencewas the city of Paris was much larger, but the life within the city was still the same withpeople leading similar lives, doing the same jobs, getting around the same way, it wasn't that different from 800 Paris to 1700 Paris......their lives were the same, they lived the same, the taxes was the same, the churches were the same, the food was the same.....life was no different in 800 as it was in 1700... but life was completely different in Paris by 1900... and science and technology and machines changed Paris enough tomake it unrecognizable to someone from 800 or even 1700...….

we must understand this change before we can understand what it means to be "moderns".... Modernity cannot make sense until we understand what it meant to live in the past...….

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we must locate modernity in our understanding of the past....recall our standards for understanding: compare and contrast....one of the ways we reach an understanding of anything is to compare and contrast things....am I a better person today then I was 30 years ago? I need to then compare and contrast who I was 30years ago with who I am today.....another path to understanding lieswith our engagement with others... now others can be anything else in the universe... and that includes ism's, ideologies, biases, superstitions,prejudice.....so I can better understand being human by comparing who I am against animals or plants or walls and other human beings...…

now is my understanding biased because I can only understand by my one viewpoint, my subjectivity? I cannot see the universe or reality in yourshoes or in your viewpoint.... I am limited to having just one viewpoint orplace to stand where I can understand the world...….and that one viewpoint or place to stand is limited by history and experiences and by my accidental birth in a particular place and family...… I have a hearing loss and you most likelydon't... my understanding of reality, of the universe is changed by the very act of having a hearing loss... just as your understanding of the universe, reality is changedby you having all your hearing...….so ask yourself, who has a "better" understandingof the universe? You or me? to me that is an irrelevant question for it has nopossible answer because we can never know that answer... because "better" requiressome form of comparison or contrast and what are we to compare and contrast "better" to? it all becomes just a subjective understanding of the word "better"...…

so we begin by understand modernity by comparing our "modern" lives with the lives of people who existed before us.....

first of all, most people in history had a very short life expectancy, during the Roman empire, the average life expectancy was roughly 25 years and I can't see it being any different from the height of the Roman empire to 1789....perhaps give it to 30 or 32 after the middle ages....next, the average person rarelytraveled more then a 100 miles from their place of birth.... just the amount of movement by human beings has dramatically increased.... next, the averageperson for most of history was a farmer. Today, we have more human beings living in cities then living on the farm, world wide... that alone makes all the difference in the world... for city existence is vastly different then a farm existence.....in the city, we experience far more in a yearthen the average farmer in the middle ages experienced in a lifetime.....and that fact is vital...…...for it is within these experiences that we compare and contrast ourselves to... I cannot know if I am a bigot for exampleunless I compare myself with others and it seems clear that I am not a bigot comparing myself to the bigots that inhabit ILP...…and that is just one way we can find out or discover who we areand what is our nature......now some clowns here have tried to tie anti-Semitism with being liberal but that can only happen if you twist the entire understanding of being liberal and anti-Semitism into someunrecognizable definition.

thus we return to Socrates and his dictum, know thyself...…and we can only know ourselves in relations to others.....

and so by comparing the fact that we moderns, experience and travel and live longer then the prior generations meansour understanding of the universe is different from thoseother generations....we live in modern world where we havescience, technology and machines.... the average person duringthe last 100,000 years didn't have those things. those facts of "modernity" means we view the world vastly different then those who didn't have our modern tools of science and technology.

Our understanding of "Modernity" is view by comparing and contrasting what is our modern experiences compared to those who existed before us....we see in those difference what modernity means...…

the loss of ism's and ideologies that existed in the past came about fromthe way people came to understand themselves..... you can see that when you see the rise of Christianity in the ancient world.... you can compareand contrast Rome from the time of Caesar to the fall of Rome in 476 BC.....we see Rome slowly change during those 500 years.... for example, the Rome of Caesar had engineers and builders who could build grand, finebuildings but by the time of the fall of Rome, you didn't have any bodywho could build or construct those wonderful building of ancient Rome....the knowledge and technique was lost during those 500 years and wasn'trediscovered until the Renaissance...…

Modernity is more then another time period... it is about the comparing and contrasting of the experiences and events and people of previous timescompared to our modern times......and in that comparison and contrast,we can see why we have lost our faith in god and religion and most formsof ism's and ideologies...…. we are atomistic and isolated from the past in ways we haven't even discovered yet... but that doesn't mean we mustreturn to the past....as has been noted before, you can't go home again.....

we must not go back to the past.... we have only one direction wecan move and that is forward... and any who call for a return to the pastmust find out the past is no longer a home for us.... we cannot go home again....we must find our way forward...… but that doesn't tell us the new ism's and ideologies and prejudices and superstitions that we must nowhold in order to be at home in this modern world..... no, it doesn't.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

if we compare our current situation to the situation of someone in the past, say, 1700, France..... you can say that the average person was a farmer,who lived to say, 35, who was born into the Catholic church and the King of Francehad been King since 1643.... all of these are part of the identity of someone whowas living in 1700.....their families had probably owned the land they worked onfor generations....the average person didn't travel that far in their life, perhaps a couple of hunred miles away from their home........

we understand the human condition by the possibilities that exists in that time period.......the average person, I shall call Rene, didn't go to collage, most likely had a limited education, probably couldn't read, as the number of nobles were around 600,000 in a population of 22 million and the money always goes to the wealthy nobles or the church, thus Rene was also living on the edge of poverty.....and until recent times, the possibility of a famine was always in mind..... Rene lived a hard, brutal, short life and because of thathe needed all the help he could get and that came from the churchand its all-encompassing hold over life in rural france in 1700......you were born, lived and die within the hold of Catholic church...and average person like Rene most likely didn't object because his life was so transitory and difficult.

Now compare that to your life......

and now we see modernity in its full exposure..... it is the differencebetween a person's life in 1700, Rene and your life today.....

we feel alienated, disconnected, atomized by life today because the factors that comforted Rene does not exists today....

perhaps Nietzsche was right, god is dead and we have killed him...and it might be those factors of life, the church and the small villagenear the land of Rene, that all gave solace and comfort to Rene... his lifewas a life grounded into the traditions and experiences he had living in his very limited life...…compare that to your life or maybe I can comparethat to my life..... at one stretch, my family moved over 10 times over4 states in 10 years... I had no stability, nothing that was a shared experienceduring all those moves outside of my family and books....compare my life with Rene's life...… I had a completely different experience then Rene and that difference is called "Modernity". Also in play with the difference with Rene is all the science and technology and machines that exists in my life thatdidn't exists in his life. I have never killed a animal in my life.. I have neverpicked fruits and vegetables in my life. I have never fished in my life...…I am separated, apart from the experiences that Rene had, that he neededto have to survive.... and those difference is what we call, "modernity".

god is dead and we have killed him.... we killed him when we becameseparated from, alienated from, that which keeps us alive, the basics of life... I have never build a shelter and I cannot fix a car,I can't tell you how an stove works nor how the computer works...I use these things all the time and my shelter was built for meand my car is fixed by someone else and my food is prepared by someone else... I am mediated from my life by the tools, science, technology and machines that exists in my life...…

that too is "modernity"... our separation from the basics of life.....

I stand here and the basics of life stand over there and all these things,tools, science, technology and machines stand between me and the basics of life.....it creates a different reality, experience for me, thenit does for Rene who had to find his food and fix his food and repairhis hovel with what was at hand and fix his wagon with whatever he could find......and then he would go out into the field and plant his crop and raise that crop and then sell that crop for whatever he could get.....

I woke up today, it is my day off, I came into the kitchen and turned onthe TV and then I took my various pills that I need, then I microwaved somethingfor breakfast... I am wearing my headphones to listen to music and I did readsome but I have mostly spent my morning writing here..... compare my daywith Rene's day...… that is "modernity"

Rene's life was grounded in the fact he was a farmer and his life was groundedin a life that his father had and his grandfather had and his great grandfather had....with a church his father and everyone before had, with a state with Kings and nobles that been there for a thousand years....he didn't travel and he couldn't read and his experiences are the experiences of a French famer in 1700.. limited,at best...……

I am not grounded by my experiences, I will work again on Weds, standing for8 hours while I scan and input codes into the computer.. weighing fruits and vegetables and chit chat with the customers in a brightly lit store fullscience and technology and machines...….as I now work much further away from home, it takes about an half hour to drive home in my car, mostly in ugly traffic.. I reach home and perhaps my wife will make me dinner by using thestove or more likely the microwave to cook my dinner...….

My daily experiences are so different from Rene's that we could befrom different planets... and that difference is "modernity"

now the question arises, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

and do we, must we change ourselves to become more grounded? or should we just learn to change and adapt to our new reality, ournew understanding of what it means to be human?

many, many questions are here... and I don't know the answers....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

so we have tried to understand modernity as the difference between, compare and contrast, the livesof people before say, the French revolution and today.....

but that compare and contrast lies in only one direction, the past, what about the comparison between today and tomorrow, the future?

is society moving in the right direction? is my life "better" off then my created person described in my last post, as Rene, is my life betteroff then Rene? Depends on what is the standards used?I am economically better off then Rene, I am not faced with possiblefamine nor will I starve to death.... but and this is important....I can fall a great deal further then Rene... he is basically one small stepfrom complete poverty and homelessness whereas I while solidly lowermiddle class, within missing three paychecks, I could face povertyand becoming homeless.. I have further to fall then Rene.....and that is another experience Rene will not face...…

but the question still remains, how are we to face the future? the conservative demands a return to the past, but we cannotgo home again.... we can never return to the middle ages or even the 1950's.... for better or worse, we are here, right now in 2019 and we must decide how we are to engage with 2020 and beyond....

so much of our thinking is engage with ad hoc thinking.... that is to say,we deal with, focus on fighting the fires of our times with solutions that are meant to solve those small scale problems......we see homelessness and we answer with increasing the budget to better improve their lives...but that is a ad hoc solution because it doesn't engage with the reasonswe have homeless people..... a solution must deal with a small scaleimmediate solution when we must really create a large scale, comprehensive solution that is a sociality solution for the homeless arise from issues and problems within our society.... homelessness is not an isolated, individual problem, but a problem that stem fromour system and our choices within that system...…

every problem I can think of that plagues society stems from society in some fashion and every single problem mustbe solved from a sociality standpoint. we cannot create small scalead hoc solutions for problems that stem from sociality issues....homelessness is a problem because of the way society is organizedand arranged and can only be solved on a sociality level.....

the same is true with every single problem we are faced with, frompoverty to homelessness to children's lack of food to climate change to pollution to overpopulation to income inequality and so on...…

we cannot simply use an half ass a solution and call it a day....

we must be prepared to rethink and reorganize our entire society if we are to successfully engage with and solve ourmyriad problems....

but one might ask why? if you ask that you have failed to understandthe entire point of society and government...…the use of society and government is to find solutions to a problemor problems facing a people...society/government is a problem solvingmethod for individuals.... we use government to solve problems that are not possible on an individual level....for example, on an individual level,I cannot successfully live my life without the various solutions that the government has provided me such as police, fire departments,sewage plants, road and hospitals.... these governmental solutionsto problems free me up to engage with my life and my own search for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"...…..

without these governmental solutions, life is as Hobbes describe it, is....

"Life outside of society would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"

it is society/the tools of problem solving like the government thathas created our "modern" way of life...….

and then we are still faced with the question of the future...

but the conservative demands that "government become small enough to drown in a bathtub"

and the conservative works for and demands a small government all the while ignoring the fact that it is the government as a solutionthat has created our modern and somewhat successful modern world....

so it becomes a question of what problems, issues that currently bedevils us that we must find solutions to and we must engage inall the tools, science and technology that we have along with that other tool, government to find solutions to our problems....

for that is really the path into the future we must engage with...what are our problems and how do we find solutions to those problems?

that is the path into the future or a least one possible path into the future....we can go into the future with the understanding that our engagementwith the future is about solving our problems and what tools do we use tosolve those problems like global warming and poverty and overpopulation....

that is one possible answer to how are we to face the future...but there are always other possible answers to this question of, how are we to face our future....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

to make sure its clarified, we have serious issues such as global warming, income inequality, poverty and pollution...these are not 4 distinct and separate issues or problems,these are 4 connected and interrelated problems/issues....

there is not one answer that will solve any one of these problems,there is only an overarching, overall solution to these problems....anyone who says we must solve poverty by raising taxes is not understandingthe issue.... we must not advocate ad hoc solutions to distinct and separate problems/issues because there aren't distinct and separate problems/issues.... they are simple part of the overallproblems and issues we face.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

and so one might say, ok, what is the overall solution to our overall problems... and they are still missing the point....

the answer lies with and begins with an overall understanding of whatit means to human and what are our possibilities and what is our futuregoals... the solution begins with changing our understanding, of our beginning with Socrates, know thyself and then understandingwhat values are really our values and what values are values we were taught and indoctrinated with as children and then overcome those values by a reevaluation of values... of finding outwhat values are really your values and not indoctrinated values of childhoodand then becoming who you are...which means become those values youhave reevaluated..... if you are indoctrinated with "american" values of martial values and a concern with security and in your reevaluation you decide your real values are values of justice and hope and love...you then have reevaluated your values and now you must liveyour life with the new values, become who you are by livingyour life with your new reevaluated values... and we haven't evendone this basic step and thus we are unable to see our way to any type of solution that will solve society issues/problems becausewe are still back with our indoctrinated values and any solution we thencome up with will simply be ad hoc solutions because we haven'tbecome who we are and thus we are alienated from, disconnectedfrom our real values... instead of doing as we do now which isfollow our indoctrinated values which have no point because those indoctrinated values cannot answer for us or suggest to usany solutions to our current problems....so to make this clear.....

as a child of three, I was indoctrinated with values that are meant tosolve my three year old problems.... I am now 60 and those values meantto solve my problems of three, my indoctrinated values, cannot even beginto solve my problems of my being 60... my indoctrinated values are not capableof solving my current issues/problems... I must have values that are relevantand current to solve my 60 year old problems and issues.....

that is the same thing within society... we must have and use values thatare current and relevant to our issues/problems at the time....indoctrinated values of childhood work in childhood, but as we growthey become less and less effective as solutions until one day, theyno longer work as solutions and we must adapt change our values to match our current age and situation in life and we have to do so individuallyand collectively...…..that is why we are alienated and disconnected fromourselves and society because we are using childhood indoctrinations to solve adult problems and issues...….

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

when conservative demand a capitalistic, past solution to our modern problems, they are demanding a childhood solution to our present age problems...…

when someone defends capitalism as it stands today, as a system in which private greed and individual goals are somehow meant to solve the societies problems,the so called hand of god, that is meant to somehow insome way that has never been explained, to make society work... then are using a childhood solution to an adult problem

for as adults, private greed doesn't solve or help our modern problems/issues... for greed and anger and hate are childhoodsolutions to problems.. in other words, capitalism is a childhoodanswer to adult problems........ capitalism worked when we were in that situation, with those experiences, but today, we have adult problems and capitalism with its emphasison childhood solutions of greed and the every present cry ofthe child... me, me, me, me, me, me....no longer will workas an adult... we cannot say, me, as an adult.... we say, weand that is an adult solution... and so we must address our currentproblems/issues with adult solutions and as capitalism is a childhoodanswer, we can no longer go with that solution... as adults wefind that engagement with other human beings, cooperationis the adult solution to most of our problems, issues....and so to understand that in adult terms, we must no longeruse childhood solutions like capitalism to solve our problems/issues...

we must use adulthood solutions and that means we must cooperateand work together, so the adult solution to our problems/issues isreally socialism/communism.... we must work together and in doing so,we can together to solve our problems..... the political and economicsystem of adults is not capitalism but socialism/communism...

so anyone who says, MAGA, make America great again, is using childhood solutions to solve adult problems/issues....

we must find and use adult solutions to our adultproblems...…..and using solutions from the past, our childhood,is no longer possible for those solutions were right for that time and stage of development, but that time, that age was 3....

we are now adults and we must use an adult solution which isnot the indoctrinated solutions of childhood which is great forsolving the problems of children... but we are no longer children..and children solutions will no longer work for us...…

we don't need to MAGA, make America great again....we need to discover new solutions that make sense with our current problems and issues.. and childhood solutions likeMAGA and "follow the past" will no longer solve our problems/issues....

to be a conservative and demand the past solutions to current adult problemsis to demand we use 3 year old solutions to solve adult problems...and my 3 year old solutions cannot and will not solve my adult problems/issues....

so, we must consider adult solutions to adult problems and socialism is the best one we can use because it is adult in it a solution that is adult, working together and planning together is what adults do... we aren't just about our own personal goals, for anadult, it is us, not me...…….. and socialism is us and capitalism is me.....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

as is my habit, I usually stop my reading and writing in the afternoon...So I was just watching CNN killing time before the Warriors play inan hour and I see this news report saying that there is some sortof town hall meeting in which Sen. Warren will announce several policy programs that she will institute as president...for example, she wants to break up tech companies and have universal child and health care.... which are fine policies butand this is important, they seem to be ad hoc suggestions thathave no overall vision or goal to reach..... they are individual, separatepolicies that have no relationship to each other.. there is no plan or a unified plan to overcome our problems... just individual policies that exist isolated from each other.....and therein liesthe problem...…. we have seen this movie before and it has leadus nowhere because to be effective, you must have an overall plan or a goal for us to reach for individual policies to work.....

what is the overall plan of Sen. Warren? I doubt she could even tellyou and that is the problem.... what is the vision and how doesthe individual ad hoc suggestions help us reach that vision?

if you look at the past and see the great human beings, they all brought to the table, a vision, a goal they want to reach....

look at the people running for president and not one has a overall vision or overall goal that they want to reach.... it is simply ad hocsuggestions that are simply band-aids on our problems instead ofa philosophical underpinning that allows one to achieve a goal or reacha vision....we must have this philosophical underpinning of where we are goingand then and only then, can we begin to describe our plans for reaching our goals....

in other words, we have a vision and then we think about what it takesto reach that vision/goal.... for example, we want to eliminate poverty...what changes do we need to make in policy and in our viewpoint of the worlddo we need to reach our goal of eliminating poverty.... we have a goal and then we find the actions to take to reach that goal... Sen. Warren has the actions to take but do they reach a goal or achieve a vision of tomorrow? She has never vocally said out loud what is her philosophical underpinning or what vision or goal she wants to achieve.....the goals or vision determines the actions to be taken...…..and as we cannot see the vision, we cannot see if her actions will achievethose goals or the vision....

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

ok, we have a vision.... and we decide that our vision is MAGA, "make America great again"so, how do we create policies, decide upon actions that will make America great again.... However, my own vision or goal is to makeAmerica the greatest country on earth......that is a subtle differencebetween making America great again and making America the greatestcountry on earth.....

so how do we go about making America the greatest country on earth...by what means or actions would we take to make America the greatest countryon earth? First of all, we have to understand what it means to be the greatest countryon earth... by what standards will we use to reach our goal of being the greatest country? by standards, I mean, are we to use such standards as economically or socially or militarily or some other standard to decideupon that will make us great...… so, we might say for example, we are thegreatest country on earth because we have the greatest military on earth..thus using military strength as the criteria for being the greatest country on earth or perhaps we might us the economic standard, we are economicallythe greatest country on earth.... but are those really standards we should useto judge if we are the greatest country on earth?

let us look into history..... we see that the Athenians were the greatestnavel power on earth and by that, they achieve their greatness but you must note that Athens only achieve their greatness for a very short period of time, about 100 years.... not much greatness.....

so we try the economic standard for Athens to be the greatest country on earth...…..and once again, we can say Athens was the greatest countryfor only a very short time.....so by using those two standards, we see that using the economic or military standards for greatness leads us to see that greatness on those terms has a very short existence....

let us examine Rome... Rome was the leading economic and military powerin Europe... the greatest country on earth but the fact is that Rome was the greatest power for a relatively short time, maybe 500 yearsand then it completely collapsed...… trying to tie greatness of a countryinto an economic or military power has it limits because a country can achieve greatness for only a short time before it falls back to earth....

let us look at how we might achieve greatness in America.....we must lookat other countries, compare and contrast, and see what seems to makegreat countries.... and we look at Europe and we see that the most successfuland stable countries in Europe are countries that don't have very bigincome inequality.... everyone is roughly in the same middle area in wealth...you don't have great wealth and you don't have great poverty...……

and by looking at other countries in history, you see this too is a factor..income inequality is a sign of a country that might be great for a short timebut income inequality brings about instability and chaos.... for example Athens during its greatness didn't have tremendous income inequality..it certainly did have income inequality but it wasn't to the extent that Americais today..... Rome had real problems within its society because of its income inequality and one can make the argument that what finally destroyedRome was its income inequality.... the wealthy and churches didn't pay taxesand the tax burden grew too great on everyone else to allow Rome to survive....a lesson for modern times...…

and when we look at other "great" countries we see similar stories, of temporary greatness either militarily or economically but not long lasting at all.... and we see this too with America....

now this leads us to another question, is greatness really a functionof military or economic strength? I don't think so.... I see greatnesscoming from having our individual members of society being as strongas possible... and thus we must be achieving goals as eliminating povertyand income inequality... citizens must be roughly equal.... justice which isequality must be the driving force of any society striving for greatness...not military or economic strength.

let us look at individuals that have been "great" and we try to see what madethem great...… we begin with Jesus.... Jesus didn't have either economic or militarygreatness... he was a poor man who message, in part, was that for people to reach heaven must not be rich, they must give away their wealth to achieve heaven..and he had 12 apostles and at most he had maybe 150 people within his circle who paid any attention to him..... the greatness he achieved had nothing to do with wealth or military...… Martin Luther... he had neither wealth or military strength... and yet, he was great and changed the world in a dramaticand profound way without the usual trappings of wealth or military....

Gandhi, he too was a poor man who preached peace and nonviolence...and he too changed the world.... Martin Luther King, poor and peaceful....

we see individual greatness doesn't need wealth or a military behind them toachieve greatness.... greatness isn't about wealth or about the strength of anymilitary behind them...…… so why should we make greatness about wealth orthe military when we see individuals being great without any wealth or militaryto back them up...…..

we need to redefine what greatness is to include what is actually greatness, not wealth and not military.... but purpose in life, a vision...…

and understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to become who we are.... that is greatness.....that is a goal devoutly to be reached......did Shakespeare have wealth or military to achieve greatness? Now some did reach greatness by the military, Caesar and Napoleon and Alexander the greatreach greatness by military means... and look at how they ended.... none of them had a particular dignified ending... you can include Hitler or Stalin and see whathavoc did they achieve..... millions dead and fated to be hated till the end of time....

we must reevaluate greatness to be something besides wealth or military becauseneither path is the path to greatness.... real greatness is written not by wealth or the military but by a goal, a plan, a vision of what we are and what is our possibilities....

Lincoln was great not because of wealth or the military, but by a vision....Einstein was great not because of wealth or the military but by a vision....Newton was great not by wealth or the military, but by a vision...…Hawkins was great not by wealth or the military but by a vision.....Socrates was great not by wealth or the military but by a vision....philosophers and thinkers and scientist are great not by wealth orthe military but by a vision...……

we must follow greatness by following a vision, a goal and not byembracing wealth or the military...… we want to be great or ifwe want a country to be great, we must embrace a vision or a goal,not wealth or the military...…..

reach for greatness....

reach for a vision...…

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we often consider the greatest explosion of creative thought to be Athens from roughly 480 BC to about 380 BC...… it wasn't wealth or the military that drove this unprecedent creative explosion.....we remember Athens because of its buildings, the philosophers,the ART, the many first that Greece founded from math to science to history to philosophy.....

we turn to the renaissance and we see the same thing... an explosionof creativity that has enthralled the world since... and that creativity hadnothing to do with wealth or the military....you cannot attribute genius to wealth or the military...….and genius is greatness and that has nothingto do with wealth or the military...…. so, we cannot continue to define our country "greatness" with wealth or the military because greatness is notfound there....

we can and must redefine what greatness means and then act to reach for greatness... the theory tells us the actions... as theory is the underpinning of actions...… our modern world is built upon the underpinning of the science that drives the technology and the machines...without the science, the underpinning, we cannot create the technology or the machines...……

what is the underpinnings of our modern world?

what are the philosophical idea's that give our world its shape?

we have the religion/theology of Mammon….

we pray to this god all the time.... this religion is a nihilistic one,it negates people and their values.... it is the religion of the GOP and IQ45......Money above all else.... that is the GOP mantra...…money above people and their values...….nihilism... pure and simple....

no, our philosophical underpinnings cannot be a nihilistic one...…

we must have as our philosophical underpinning a hopeful, positive philosophy...… we must begin by acknowledging our addiction to this ideology of materialism...….

then we must place people and life above materialism or money...and for many, many, this will be hard to do because they have livedwith their addiction for so long that changing will be hard to do.....

we can do worse then replace our addiction with a pursuit of greatness....we can begin to replace nihilism with creativity by building, creating art, engaging with love which is the basis of all creativity...… the overflowing ofthe heart is the basis of all ART... this overflowing can be one of the many emotions we human beings feel, from sadness to anger to hate to love to despair...our heart overflows and we must release it, express it and ART is the means we use to bring the heart back into moderation.....think of a boiling pot, without a valve to release the steam, the pressure within the pot grows and grows untilit becomes dangerous.... we release the steam from the boiling pot and there is no danger to us...… the human heart is the exact same thing as a boiling pot...we must release the steam or we get burnt when it explodes...…

one might say, Kropotkin, you are talking about several different things,what exactly are you talking about? I say unto you, no, no, I am talking about the exact same thing when I talk about greatness and nihilism and ART and releasing steam from the human heart.... they are just different sides of the human experience.....we cannot separate out who we are into distinct and separate parts... we are one and the same.... and the myriad of feelings and thoughts and instincts that drive the human soul, all come from us, the human being... and we must learn to harness and love all aspects of us.....

we can only reach or achieve greatness once we learn to become who we are,and learn what are our possibilities... for art and greatness and love and becoming all rise from our possibilities...… and possibilities means what is possible for us to become.... it is possible for us to find greatness within usand it is possible for us to become great artist and it is possible for us to becomegreat human beings, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King...…..for love and greatnessand hope and our possibilities are all found within us, within who we are...…

our philosophical underpinning is simply a statement of what we believe is possible for the human soul...……

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

one way to think of modernity and people in the past, people likemy made up Frenchman name Rene..... look at Rene... he was a farmer,a church goer, catholic, he existed under the Ancient Regime, the politicaland social system of the Kingdom of France for 500 years...…

but how many different roles did Rene have to play? very few... farmer,churchgoer, taxpayer, possibly husband and father....

now let us take Kropotkin for example, he is a worker thus must present oneface to the management or as I have recently noticed, be banished...another role is husband and father and we have taxpayers just as Rene did, but we have many different and diverse systems in which we play our roles and each system requires us to play a different role...we are a consumer, voter,citizen, sport fan, participant of such internet games as presented here on ILP,with each system comes a different role, a different Kropotkin....

I act and interact with hundreds of people every single day... I probably meet and greet morepeople in one month then Rene has met in his entire life.....

and that too is part of the difference between the modern and the world before1789......

the grounds of our existence is different then the grounds of existence for Rene and everyone like Rene who lived before the French Revolution.....

think of a farmers life and then think of your life.... a vast difference andone that marks the difference between modernity and the past....our basic existence is mediated by all the science and technology and machines we use every single day and Rene existence was about the fieldshe was working on and the seasons that affected his crops and animals and birds that might eat his crop and saving his soul from everlasting damnation....

none of Rene concerns are our concerns because we exists in modernity and Rene did not...….

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

we have so many assumptions that we live under....for example this idea of American greatness or American exceptionalismwhich is America is great by being virtue of being America.....this hubris is a path to failure.... for with any person, group, city, nation, we mustwork every single day to become great, greatness is not handed to us, it is worked for every single day.....sports teams don't just rest once they have won a championship, no, in fact once you win a title, you have got work even harder to maintain that title because everyone is gunning for you....if America is exceptional then we mustwork every single day to remain exceptional..... the same is true of American greatness.... but I return to an earlier point, what makes America great? how are we to define greatness? we just assume that we are great withoutactually understanding the basis for our greatness...

and the same lies true for the greatness of our values.... what values makes Americagreat? can we even define those values? Can we point out people who follow those values?

the problem is we assume so much in regards to what America stands for and what being American actually means...…..If you are a white nationalist,I would maintain that you don't stand for American values because documentslike the declaration of independence stated things like this: "All men are created equal"it doesn't say, all white men, it says "all men" thus the color of one's skin is irrelevant in regards to the statement in question.....and we have clearly expanded the statement to include women, so the statement in question is really this:

"All human beings are created equal"

and they are.... to attempt to negate people based on the color of their skin or their religion or their nationality is an attempt to deny the founding fathers.....you cannot claim to be a patriot and still try to negate human beings basedon their skin color or their creed or their nationality....

and this the problem with white nationalist like the ones who exists on ILP,they are nihilists, they negate people and their values and that is nihilism...nihilism is not positive as it engages in negative values and negative instincts like hate and anger and greed and lust among others.....

and those who negate people because of who they love or their social oreconomic or political beliefs are nihilists..... if you negate someone becausethey are gay or they believe in socialism, you are a nihilist...….

IQ45 is a nihilist because he negates which is to say he is racist and bigoted and sexist and anti-sematic...…… he negates people based on race, color, sex, even if they are handicap..... that is nihilistic....

now one might say, it isn't nihilistic because we bigots and racist and sexist stillhold values..... really, what values would those be?

I suspect the bigots of the world don't even have a coherent understandingof what they value because that would require some thought as to what theybelieve and their negative beliefs/instincts are really emotional reaction's to the world, not a rational understanding of the world.....I believe that the bigotsof the world can't even logical state what is their core beliefs because that wouldmean they would have to think about their beliefs and for the bigots and racistof the world it isn't about thinking, it is about how they feel, their emotional responseto people...….

again, for the instinctual people of the GOP/right wing, it would require some attempt to think about their beliefs..... but to put it bluntly, their negative/instinctual beliefs are really assumed beliefs because they have never actually given any thoughtto the nature of their beliefs.....and we return to the many assumptions thatwe live under...……….

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

in trying to understand our modernity, I was thinking about the ism's and ideologies that we have and then comparing/contrasting our current ism's and ideologies with ancient ism's and ideologies.....

for example, we have two prominent ism's that are THE 20the centuryism's, communism and capitalism...…..

but as I have previously laid out, both ism's are less path to freedom and more a path to our enslavement..... by that think about capitalism...I have laid out in great detail how capitalism is nihilism...I am not free in a capitalistic society because I am simply a small and insignificant pawn in capitalism...my role is simply to create more profit so that those who ownthe means of production can get wealthier.... I am means to greater wealthand it is not my wealth that is increased... in my 40 plus years of working, I have nothing to show for it outside of a body and soul that has been severelydamaged..... because of the pain I suffer from working, I need pain pillsand sleeping pills to go to sleep.. I am in pain every single day and that is the result of my working for 40 years.... my soul was crushed years ago.....and for what, I cannot retire.. the various economic downturns have leftme with no money saved up.....I cannot quit my job, I cannot afford it,I cannot go anywhere else because no one will hire me, I am too old....I am a victim of capitalism as are millions of people who suffer under it damaging affects.....and why? because it is said that somehow undercapitalism, the "hand of god" will benefit society... in 40 plus years, I have yet to see how this "hand of god" of capitalism has benefited society....

but communism has the same problem of the individual being merely ahelpless pawn while communism with its historical dialectal materialism that operates above us and controls us in a soulless relentless fashion....we have no personal determination in either capitalism nor in communism....we are simply ships that bob above the seas while the sea of capitalism andcommunism try to sink us and with no care as to who we are or whither wehave consented or not.... and I think that is the real problem, we have nocontrol or say over either capitalism or communism... an small example,is my recent transfer to another store.. I wasn't asked, I wasn't told about it,I was simply transferred without any consent or approval by me.. and that ina nutshell is capitalism....actions taken about my life without any inputfrom me..... and that is also communism... for we have no input into the forces that dominate communism, the dialectal materialism...where we are simply crushed under the wave of historical forces thatwe have no say or control over...…

and that is the failure of ism's from Catholicism to Hinduism to Islam toreally any religion and to the ism's of the economic and political....we have no freedom and no say over our fate in ism's and ideologies....

the Enlightenment and Kant basic point was that we needed to become free of authorities that would tell us to do, like the bibleand god and Aristotle and the Church...… but what the enlightenment never saw was that we cannot be free of the ism's and ideologies long enough to engage in what Kant called "Sapere Aude".....dare to know...we cannot think for ourselves because we are trapped within ism's and ideologies that so completely dominated our lives...…. we aresimply pawns to the final goal of these ism's and ideologies....pawns to god, pawns to capitalism, pawns to communism, pawnsto religion, pawns to the economic and pawns to the political.....

so I would guess the real battle is to become who we are andby doing so, hopefully... maybe, become free of these ism's and ideologies that have collectively crushed and destroyedour bodies and souls...……..

so the question becomes, how are we to be free of those ism's andideologies that have trapped us within the complete control overour lives.. where we have no control and no say over our lives....

does the modern vision really mean to recapture our voiceand to recapture control over what it means to be human.....

we are not, as religion and politics and economics and ism's all say,we are not disposable pieces that can be discarded, once our role of enriching the system without any benefit to ourselves,happens...…

I am a human being and I demand that I am treated with respect...and what gives me the right to make such a demand?

I am a human being and that is enough to demand to be treated not as a ends to such means as in profits or a pawn in historical dialectical materialism..... I have value for myself, in myself, and by myself.....this is a radical call.... I have value, not justas a worker or as part of an ongoing struggle for the classless state....as my call for an escape from ism's and ideologies really is a callfor all... recall your Marx... he said,

"Workers of the world, unite"

but we are not just workers as seen by Marx, we are human beings.....we should unite but not as workers or as citizens or as mere pawns in a capitalistic system or tools of god to create the final state of heaven on earth... under Catholicism, we are just disposable tools that simply act for god to bring about this end state... what a sad commentary about the role of humans... we have no valueoutside of bringing about Armageddon......

if you want to be free, truly free... you must become free of ism's and ideologies that tell you who you are and what is your role in the specific ism or ideology....

but how are to achieve this state of being free of ism's and ideologiesthat so dominate our modern life?

the first step, as always, is to become aware of our current statusof simply being pawns or tools of the ism's and ideologies that currently exists... we have no other purpose in life except to fulfil our role within the specific ism and ideology.....

but I say unto you, no, a thousand times no....

I have value outside of and beyond the role of pawn and tool of the dominant ism's and ideologies of the 21st century...…..

the modern goal of humanity is to become free, to escape the bonds of slavery of the current ism's and ideologies like capitalism and communismand Catholicism and of any religious, social, economic or political system that desires to crush me in the name of that ism or ideology....

the path to freedom is to become free of ism's and ideologies..

but one may ask, without ism's and ideologies, how are we to know what our values are, how are we to know how to act or how arewe to know what is important in life?

or said another way, the Kantian/Kropotkin questionsof "what can we know" "what are our values" "what can wehope for" "what should we do".... ism's and ideologies can answer those profound questions but ism's and ideologiesanswer those questions by enslaving us into those ism's and ideologies...

we are no longer slaves to ism's and ideologies that demandto control us, leaving us without any say or control over our verynature, over our lives...……

the next revolution is to free ourselves from the dehumanizing and nihilistic ism's and ideologies that control our lives...…

"Human beings of the world, unite, for you have nothing to lose but your chains"

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"

I can... I can see a world where when someone is down and out, we help them, not because of some ism or ideology but because they are a human being.. nothing more and nothing less....

we don't need to act because some ism or ideology requiresus to act, we can simply act because we are a kind people....and ism's and ideologies quite often prevent us from simplybeing people..... we often act within an ism or ideologyinstead of being people, being human...…..

if we free ourselves of ism's and ideologies, we simplyact from being human.. our action are simply actionsof us being human beings, not as democrats or Catholics or Republicans or socialist or capitalists, but we act because we are human beings....not as members of some ism or ideology....

I can see a world where there is no ism's or ideologies....a world that is free of the crap and soul crushing ism's that demand your body and soul as a price of doing business within that ism/ideology....

try to imagine a world without ism's an ideologies...

government isn't about helping some because of their allegiance to the government and denying help to othersbecause of their allegiance to other ism's and ideologies...

no, government helps all regardless of their allegiance,their allegiance to any form of ism or ideology...government simply helps people, helps human beings simply because they are human beings, not because theyare Americans or white or male or religious....

"Government of the people, for the people, by the people"

that isn't about ism's or ideologies or some accidental properties you were born with... no, you have value simplybecause you are life...and life has value, be it human or dogsor grass or birds or cows...… life is the value itself...and life doesn't require ism's or ideologies to be judged....

life is the judgement itself...

adherence to ism's and ideologies means we can negateand deny value to humans or to life... ism's and ideologiesare nihilistic because it allows us to negate in the name of thatism or ideology and be negated in the name of that ism or ideology....

a ism that negates human beings like communism or capitalismor Catholicism is not a ism that we can follow... for negation ism's are nihilism and we must, must discard ism's and ideologies forthis very reason.....we cannot accept or allow nihilistic ism's or ideologies to dominate our lives..... and the only way to accomplish this is to no longer accept ism's or ideologies.... or said another way,

we must negate the negation.... and by doing so, we become free tobecome who we are... we are not capitalist nor are we communist nor are we Catholics or democrats or American's.... no, we are human beings who happen to be capitalist or communist....

but if we no longer our ism or ideology, we simply become human beings....and we can dream and pray and loveand enjoy who we are without recourse to any ism or ideology....

the dream then is to become human without any ism or ideology...

we have a goal, a destination.. now all we need is to figureout the steps we need to make this possible.....

what will it take to remove the damaging and destructive ism's and ideologies in your life, in our lives?

Kropotkin

"Those who sacrifice liberty for securitywind up with neither." "Ben Franklin"